Somebody I Used to Know

by David Bell

  I was always much happier, much more comfortable being myself with Marissa. I loved her.

  I still did.

  “Have you been waiting long?” I asked Heather.

  “I was in the neighborhood,” she said. “I thought I’d see if you were around.”

  “I was at the police station. Before that, I was at Emily Russell’s funeral.”

  Heather didn’t seem thrown by either of my admissions. She simply asked how everything was going with the case. “Do they know anything else yet?”

  I told her no, that they knew nothing except that a young girl had been murdered. A young girl who I thought looked a hell of a lot like Marissa. “But I might be the only one making that connection.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Heather said.

  “Emily?”

  “Marissa.” She fiddled with her watch. “Do you have anything to drink?”

  “You mean a real drink?” I asked.

  “Wine? Beer?”

  I went out to the kitchen, grabbing a beer for myself and a bottle of red wine that had been sitting on my counter for six months. I didn’t know if it was any good or not, but I went ahead and opened it, blew the dust out of a glass, and poured. When I handed the drink to her, our hands brushed a little, and she smiled up at me.

  Then she swallowed the wine. Her mouth curled like she’d sipped something that had been strained through dirty socks.

  “Is it that bad?” I asked. “Do you want a beer instead?”

  “It’s fine,” she said. “I wouldn’t have bought it, but it’s fine. I like good wine. I can suggest a few different kinds.”

  “I don’t like wine at all,” I said. “Somebody gave it to me. Like I said, if you don’t want it, I can dump it. What did you want to tell me about Marissa?”

  “Okay,” Heather said. “You want to get right to it.” She sipped more of the wine and made less of a face.

  “It’s been a long couple of days,” I said. “I’m sorry to be short, but I’d love to hear what you want to tell me.”

  “Okay.” She rested the wineglass on her knee, keeping her fingers wrapped around the stem. “We talked the other day about the night Marissa died. And that man she was seen with. I felt like you questioned my story about that man because you thought I had ulterior motives. We dated before you met Marissa. We kind of dated after Marissa, and then again after you got divorced. There was always something between us, right?”

  “You don’t need to worry,” I said. “Someone else confirmed your account. Hell, they confirmed more than you told me. I don’t have any doubt Marissa was involved with that man in some way. Some real, intense way.” I stopped to take a drink of my beer. It couldn’t taste as bitter as I felt. Maybe nothing tasted good anymore. “I guess I’m glad you told me the truth. I’m glad more than one person told me the truth. I needed to hear it.”

  Heather’s shoulders slumped dramatically. “I’m so glad you feel that way.” She reached up with her free hand and swiped it across her brow. “I’m relieved. I know it’s tough to hear about someone you thought you knew well.”

  “I did know her well. Just . . . just not as well as I thought, I guess.”

  “Who told you this news about her?” she asked, and then started shaking her head. “You know what? Never mind. I don’t need to know. If it was a good friend, then that person was just trying to help. That’s all a friend should ever try to do.”

  “Yeah. Right,” I said. “It’s like eating my vegetables or something. It sucks going down, but it’s for my own good.” I slumped lower in my chair and drank more of my beer. I didn’t care about the bitter taste. I liked what it was doing to my head.

  Heather stood up and moved to the end of the couch closest to my chair. She rearranged the cushions and sat down, wearing a sympathetic frown on her face. “I’m sorry.”

  “What did you want to tell me?” I asked.

  She studied me for a moment. “It’s not important now.”

  But I could see she wanted to tell me. And I wanted to hear. Was I supposed to just sit there and swallow my curiosity? I couldn’t. And I knew that Heather knew that.

  “What is it?” I asked. “Just tell me.”

  “Oh, boy,” Heather said.

  I recognized the words and the approach. It was straight out of her playbook from college. She’d act like she didn’t want to say what she had to say, but I knew she did. And not only did I know she wanted to tell me, I knew it was going to be something bad. Heather used this tactic when she wanted to say something nasty about one of her friends. She liked to act as though the information was being dragged out of her. It wasn’t. She wanted to share. And I wanted—needed—to hear it. We both knew that.

  “Heather. Tell me.”

  “It’s Marissa,” she said.

  “What about her? If you know something, tell me.”

  “I know that news about the man at Razer’s knocked you for a loop. I know it came out of nowhere. But it really didn’t surprise me.” She took a big drink of her wine. “It didn’t surprise me because Marissa cheated on you in college. She’d been unfaithful to you before that night.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  I straightened up in my chair. “What are you talking about, Heather?”

  “I’m only telling you this because you seemed to want to get at the truth about some things.” Her voice took on a defensive tone, as though she wanted to emphasize that it was me and not her behind the secret being revealed.

  “That’s not the only reason you’re telling me,” I said. “In fact, it’s not even the primary reason, but I don’t care. I just want to know what you’re talking about.”

  “Do you remember that guy named Dan Killian?” she asked. “He was a year ahead of us.”

  Jealousy. I felt it creeping up on me. Jealousy over someone I hadn’t dated, hadn’t seen, in twenty years.

  “I remember him,” I said. He was an acquaintance more than a friend. I didn’t like him. He and Marissa were in a few classes together. She talked about him from time to time. He played in a band. A stupid band. I thought every guy who played in a band was stupid. And so were their bands.

  “I think you and Marissa had been fighting,” she said. “This was about three months, maybe four, before she died.”

  “I remember. We fought because she wanted me to come visit for a weekend. I was working back at home, and she was here for the summer. But I couldn’t come. I couldn’t get off work. She just didn’t understand what it was like to really need to have a summer job. She didn’t have to worry about that.”

  “I was here that summer,” Heather said, sipping more of her wine. She’d grown used to it apparently. She didn’t make a face when she drank it anymore. “She and I saw each other sometimes out at bars and things like that. It was a little sleepy here in the summer. Sleepy but nice. She’d complained to me earlier that week about you not coming. She said you’d fought about it, and she said she didn’t understand why you just didn’t do what she wanted.” Heather laughed a little. “I guess that’s what all girls want from their boyfriends. Anyway, that weekend I saw her somewhere. Johnny B’s, I guess it was, because they had live music. And Dan’s band was playing there that night. Marissa and Dan spent the whole night together in the bar. Drinking and laughing. It didn’t seem right considering that she was dating you. And then they left together at the end of the night.”

  I gritted my teeth while she told the story. The bitterness of the beer had made my mouth dry, and I worked up some saliva before I said, “Just because they left together doesn’t mean—”

  “She told me, Nick. A week later we were out again, and Marissa told me. She said she felt horrible, and she wanted to tell you.”

  “Why didn’t she?” I asked, the muscles in my face tight.

  “I talked her out of it. I s
aid . . . I knew you, and I told her you weren’t the kind of guy who could handle news like that. It wouldn’t just roll off you.”

  “Should it just roll off me?” I asked. “My girlfriend cheating on me?”

  Heather stood up. She came over to my chair and sat on the arm, placing her hand on my shoulder. “No, it shouldn’t. I’m not saying that. I’m just telling you all of this because . . . because maybe you’re too hung up on the past. Maybe all of this is because you haven’t let go of what happened. If you had a clear picture . . .”

  “Heather, why do I get the feeling you’re enjoying this?” I asked.

  She drew back, breaking off contact. “That’s not true.”

  I remembered that summer. I remembered the distance, physical and emotional, that grew between us during those weeks we were apart. When we saw each other, we fell back into our relationship with great ease, but the time apart nearly killed us. Had she cheated? Had she taken advantage of our time apart to spend a night or two with another guy?

  “Thanks for telling me,” I said. “I think.”

  “Let me get you another beer,” she said.

  I finished the one in my hand and put the bottle on the table. I didn’t care if she cheated. We were young. People screwed up. I needed to let it go. What did it matter?

  Heather breezed back into the living room with an open beer and the bottle of wine. She refilled her glass, and when she handed me the beer, our hands touched again. She looked at me, and my fingers intertwined with her fingers. I felt the coolness and condensation on her hand from the beer bottle.

  It had been a long time. A long, long time.

  She slid down onto my lap.

  We forgot about our drinks.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  A text from Laurel woke me the next morning, telling me she was on her way to my apartment. I put the phone down and rolled over. Heather was just waking up, stretching and lifting her arms high above her head. Then she brought her hand down and ruffled my hair.

  “Is that work?” she asked.

  “A friend’s coming over,” I said. “You remember Laurel Davidson, right?”

  Heather made a face. She showed about the same level of disdain for Laurel as she had for the wine. “She never liked me. She always acted like she needed to protect you.”

  “Protect me? From what?”

  “I don’t know. She just seemed like a very territorial friend.”

  “She’s loyal, if that’s what you mean, and she’s helping me with all of this,” I said. “Emily’s death . . . we’re trying to make sense of it.”

  “So she’s the one to blame.”

  “To blame for what?” I asked.

  “Keeping all of this alive in your head.” Heather was trying to sound a little playful, but I wasn’t interested.

  “It’s not her,” I said. “I want it alive.”

  Heather reached out again. She ran her hand over my cheek, brushing it against my stubble. “Even if it hurts?”

  “Growing older usually does,” I said.

  I went to the bathroom and got ready, shaving and brushing my teeth and hair, while Heather dressed in the bedroom. I told her she could take a shower or make coffee, but she declined. When I came out, she was ready to go, so I walked her to the door.

  “Have you ever been to a therapist?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “You might want to think about seeing one,” she said. “A good therapist can do wonders as you try to sort out your past. I can give you the name of the guy I’ve been working with. He helps me make sense of things.” She seemed a little distracted, her voice a little wistful. “Mistakes I’ve made in the past. Things I’m trying to understand. They’re not things I like to think about, but they’re always with me.”

  She stared off into space.

  “You mean your divorce?” I asked.

  “That, of course. Everything.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said.

  “With men, that usually means no.”

  “Usually.”

  She leaned in and kissed me good-bye. It was a long kiss. “Let’s do this again sometime,” she said. “I don’t have the kids this week at all. They’re with their dad.”

  “Sure.”

  But she didn’t leave. She stood in my foyer, looking contemplative.

  “Do you ever . . .” she said, but didn’t finish the thought.

  “Do I ever what?” I asked.

  “Well, you and I met freshman year, before you met Marissa. And if we hadn’t broken up, then you and Marissa would never have started dating. I know we tried later, but that was for other reasons. Do you ever wonder how things might have been different?”

  “I wonder about a lot of things from the past. Sometimes I think that’s all I do.”

  * * *

  The open door revealed a bright morning. A warm breeze blew in, carrying with it a hint of the blossoming spring. A lot of birds seemed to be chirping too. And as Heather stepped outside, Laurel came up the walk. The two women greeted each other and exchanged an awkward hug. I saw the look on Laurel’s face as her head rested on Heather’s shoulder. She looked like she was hugging a dead animal. They exchanged the requisite compliments on how good they each looked, and then Heather gave us both a small wave and headed to her car.

  When Laurel passed by me on her way into the apartment, she muttered just one word.

  “Really?”

  I followed her in, closing the door.

  She said it again. “Really?”

  “Don’t start,” I said, trying to cut the conversation off. “You can’t judge me for my relationship choices. You’re married and stable.”

  “Whatever gets you through the night,” she said, sitting on the couch.

  “Besides,” I said, “I have some questions I need to ask you. For instance, what were you doing talking to Reece? I didn’t know you were going to do that.”

  “Come on, Nick. Sit down. Let me explain.”

  I felt betrayed in some way. But her calm request that I sit down took a lot of the air out of my indignation.

  So I sat in the chair I’d been in the previous night. I thought about what Heather had told me about Marissa—the cheating, the other man. It felt less like a sharp knife in my back and more like the slow turning of a corkscrew. Was everyone laughing at me behind my back all those years ago? How big a fool did I look like crying at her funeral?

  “I know a lot of cops,” Laurel said. “I don’t know Reece well, but I know him. If I have information about a murder investigation, I have to share it with the police. It’s a moral obligation on my part. I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t. And I thought if I shared what I’d learned it might keep you off the hook. You know?”

  Her logic eased my tension a bit. “Sure. But why didn’t you tell me about the obituaries?”

  “I didn’t know about them,” she said, her voice rising and growing insistent. “He tracked them down after I left his office. I didn’t call you right away because I knew you went to Emily’s funeral. I figured you had enough on your mind with that. And we’d talk when it was time.”

  “So there it is,” I said. “Don’t these obituaries invalidate everything you told me was going on? We’d cooked up this whole theory that something weird was happening with Marissa’s family, that they’d just fallen off the face of the earth after she died. But they were right there in Colorado the whole time.”

  Laurel held up her hand. “Hold it. Who said they were just living right there in Colorado the whole time like everybody thought they were?”

  “Reece.”

  Laurel dismissed Reece with a wave of her hand, and then she started digging in the messenger bag she carried with her. “It means they were buried in Colorado, that’s all.” She brought out a piece of paper. “Yes, we did that pr
eliminary background check, and nothing turned up on them. But locating death records can be tricky. It takes time for everything to show up. If we’d dug more, we would have found the obituaries like Reece did. He’s a good cop. He did his job. But it’s still hard to explain how they went off the grid all those years. And none of it explains that girl with your address in her pocket.” She held the paper out to me. “Here.”

  I took it but didn’t look at it.

  “What about Jade?” I asked. “You were going to try to track her down.”

  “Same deal,” Laurel said. “She fell off the face of the earth too. Like I said, if she got married and has a different name, it would be tougher. But there’s no sign of her for the last twenty years.”

  “Could she be dead?”

  “She’s mentioned in the obituaries. Both of them. Survived by a daughter. Jade. No mention of a husband for her, but maybe she’s divorced. The information is scarce on her, but we’ll keep looking.”

  “Okay, I have to tell you what happened at the funeral.”

  I related the whole story: the information about Emily being adopted and the appearance of the woman at the cemetery who looked so much like Marissa. Then I told her about what happened at the Russells’ house.

  “What am I supposed to make of all of that, Laurel?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer right away, so I looked down at the sheet in my hand. I recognized it instantly. It was a copy of the obituaries, the ones Detective Reece had shown me at the police station the day before.

  “Why did you give me these?” I asked.

  Laurel paused and looked at her hands. “It seems kind of silly now.”

  “What does?” I asked.

  “I was hoping that seeing those obituaries and especially seeing Marissa’s name listed as their late daughter would help you process things more. But it seems like we’re moving in the other direction.” She sounded a little exasperated, the frustration leaking out between her words.

  “How can I not be? They never identified Marissa’s body. And Emily looks just like her. And then that woman is at the funeral, a woman who looks just like Marissa.”